Three Times Peter Was Sure There Was No God
by SunnyWinterClouds
Summary: And one time he wasn't. Romance/angst/family.


_Three Times Peter Was Sure There Was No God_

**and one time he wasn't.**

Peter Bishop has never been a religious man. Maybe it's the way he was raised, maybe it's his giant IQ, maybe it's just his skeptical personality all together, but the concept of a superhuman being watching over every person's every move and deciding their fate was simply beyond his grasp.

He's a fairly open minded guy. And hell, working with Fringe Division has taught him surely that absolutely _anything_ is possible. Yet somehow seeing the gruesome bodies of perfectly good people lying in the lab on a daily basis only convinces him further that there is no God. And if there _is,_ he's more of a twisted, sadistic son of a bitch than Peter himself once was.

And there have been some specific incidents in the last four years that have soiled any faith in the man in the sky Peter may have once had.

* * *

The damage of the universe he was born in is nothing short of extraordinary. It's extensive, collateral, severe. _Devastating._ The people who have died because of what his father – _not_ his father, he corrects himself again, a version of him – has done is remarkable. How one action, one tiny moment in history, one decision made by one man, has affected all of these people's lives forever. Their fate has been changed.

It's awful.

He wonders what this world would be like had his father – _his alter father, dammit_ – not interfered. Probably nothing short of breathtaking. Their advanced technology has made daily flights to the _moon_ possible, for Christ's sake – if this universe wasn't busy fighting off the impending and seemingly inevitable destruction of all that is, he's sure they'd be even further along in their path to greatness.

And, he muses, what would his life be if he'd grown up here?

His mother would still be alive. He's sure of that. She'd be so much happier, so much less haunted. And he'd get to have bacon – maybe even every morning. His father would be sane. He would have never abandoned them, he would be the _United States Secretary of Defense._ He and his mother wouldn't have struggled with poverty. He would have fit in.

Maybe he would have had déjà vu.

_And maybe he still would have gotten to meet Olivia._

He's angry with himself, then. His thoughts _always_ manage to stray towards her, towards her eyes, towards her smile. It's not fair. He's supposed to be furious with her, to hate her for letting him live a life that wasn't his, to grow cold at the sound of her name because she didn't tell him. They were partners, and _friends_, and she never thought to mention that Walter kidnapped him from another universe when he was a child.

He still loves her.

But there's no trust. He does _not_ trust Olivia Dunham, and he's sure he never will again.

He will never trust _anyone _again.

Mere hours later, he finds out his real father has been lying to him as well, and that's when he decides that God isn't real.

He wouldn't do that. He wouldn't splinter his world again just for fun. Or hell, maybe he _would._ It's Peter's fault the universes are like this, isn't it? Indirectly, but it happened all the same.

But he wouldn't do this to a world just to teach Walter Bishop a lesson. And he wouldn't take it out on his son by destroying his faith every person he's ever loved in either world.

Down the toilet goes his barely-there belief in a higher power, along with his trust and the want to be with the woman he loves.

He doesn't want to have faith anymore.

(Nonetheless, he gains a little of it back when he gets to kiss her for the first time.)

* * *

It's destroyed again the moment he discovers that the Olivia he's been loving for the last eight weeks is her alternate.

He gets why it might happen to him. He deserves to be punished for everything that he's done, for the lives that he's ruined, for the universe that he has potentially destroyed. It's okay if the world's being a bitch to him. It's fine. He can deal with it. It's _fair._

But not to Olivia.

Oh, no. Her punishment is captivity, false memories, experiments, confusion. She was kidnapped, she was drugged, she was imprisoned. Hell, she almost had her _brain_ cut out and he was lying in her bed with a doppelganger, obliviously falling in love with her new-found happiness and laughter.

And the cruelty doesn't end. She had to _fight_ her way back, because everyone in this universe was too stupid for too long, too blind to see they'd lost her. He can see the heartbreak in her eyes when he tells her, tells her he was a fool, and he doesn't know what _she's_ thinking but his thoughts revolve around the single fact that he never deserved her. By some miracle, she loved him too, but that's gone now.

It's all gone now.

That is his punishment.

And he deserves it, oh, it's not even close to justice for all he's done, but not her. Not Olivia.

God is not real, because no god would make one of his own angels suffer like this.

His little faith is diminished.

(And restored once more when she finally tells him that she wants it, too, and he gets to see her smile again.)

* * *

On the night he comes back after wiping himself from existence to save the universe, he swears up and down that he'll never have the tiniest bit of belief in the Lord again.

He did a _good thing_. He saved the world. He saved _both_ the worlds. He was selfless, he was determined, he worked hard. He was, for once, happy with the way he'd acted.

And now they don't remember him.

The hospital room is cold. It's cold, and dry, and bitter. He touches his face. His hands feel like ice. So does his heart.

He wraps his arms around himself. It's so cold. The sounds of the city around him make his head pound. It hurts to cry.

It hurts more not to.

He doesn't understand, dammit, he _really doesn't._

If God were real, he'd be remembered right now.

He'd be in bed with Olivia, and she'd be peppering kisses all over his face, and he'd tell her he loves her and she'd smile that smile of hers and they'd both be so happy that maybe he'd cry. Either Walter or Broyles would ruin their time together the next morning, although in _very_ different ways, but it wouldn't matter. His life would be so perfect, he wouldn't even care.

He cares. His life isn't perfect, and so he cares.

_Dammit_, it is so cold.

He looks up at the ceiling and decides for the last time that there is no one up there. Nothing but space, nothing but the atmosphere and the universe until this world ends and the next one begins.

There is no God.

There is only Hope. God is Hope, hope that there is something better after death, something to be good for, something to strive for. Something to give people purpose.

He has no purpose.

(Three months later he is happy again, and he has hope, but sticks to his promise. There is Hope, but no God.)

* * *

It doesn't make any sense.

He is a scientist, a man with an IQ of 190 and a firm belief in evolution. He's all about facts. He's all about truth.

The truth is that the little girl in his arms was surely made by God.

Her little fingers alone prove that she couldn't have possibly randomly descended from a pre-Neolithic hominid like he used to be sure all life did. This creature is far too perfect, too ridiculously flawless to not be sculpted by the hands of God himself.

He decides that she can be the exception that proves the rule. God did not make people, or they'd all be as beautiful and innocent as the girl in his arms.

God made Henrietta Bishop. It's as simple as that.


End file.
